


Implosion

by DaScribbla



Series: Red [3]
Category: The Night Manager (TV)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Budding Love, Dom/sub Undertones, Harassment, Multi, Safewords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:07:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6455005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaScribbla/pseuds/DaScribbla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jed has something she needs to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Implosion

**Author's Note:**

> I might as well continue with this sin-train.

In public, it was all smiles, all meaningless conversation, all false. Chaste handshakes, chaste kisses on the cheek. But those were all full of meaning.

“Miss Marshall.”

“Mr Quince.”

Richard didn’t try to hide what they were doing -- and if you lived in the villa, you were all-too-aware -- but he didn’t make a show of it. And if he favored Thomas more than what was usual for a new member of the organization, no one commented on it to his face. Several people whispered that Thomas was gearing up to take Corky’s place -- to which Corky muttered darkly that it wouldn’t be like Richard Roper to mix business and pleasure.

Jed knew he wanted Thomas, but desire would hardly make him blind to how he was stealing his position from beneath him. If he could fuck him and then put a bullet through his head, Jed didn’t doubt he’d take the opportunity. It was a source of private pride to her that even she had managed to have him where Corky hadn’t. Not for lack of trying, though. Not a day went by without him making some sort of pass, verbal or physical. And he was the only one in the villa who dared to mention the arrangement aloud -- but never in the presence of Richard.

“Wish I knew what he did to get you in bed,” he said on one occasion, when he, Thomas, and Jed were sitting out by the pool. “Wouldn’t have expected you to go for the older blokes.” Thomas looked away, not replying. “So it’s not you, it’s me then, is that it? Or maybe you’re straight. Did he tell you could fuck her --” Corky jerked his head at Jed, who was seated on the lounge chair, reading a magazine, “ -- if you let him fuck you?” Jed gave him a scathing look and returned to the text. She heard Thomas sigh. When he replied, he somehow managed to sound bored.

“You know, Corky, you’re rather amusingly wrong.”

He caught Jed’s eye and did she detect the faintest touch of a grin? She deliberately transferred her eyes to the page, hiding the smile pulling at her lips. 

But it was only growing worse, the constant harassment.

 

And they fucked each other -- with growing frequency, to Jed’s mind. Sometimes she wondered if he and Richard would soon have a happy announcement to make; they seemed ridiculously attached to each other. It happened so often that she was beginning to feel like an afterthought. Or perhaps they were humoring her by letting her into their world, like letting a child play in their parents’ clothes.

“Are you tired of me?” she asked Richard one morning, after Thomas had returned, all wide eyes and smiles, to his own bed. 

“Tired of you?” asked Richard, lacing his dressing gown -- the blue one, it was always the blue one after sex -- and coming to sit beside her on the bed. “What gave you that idea?”

She almost had to laugh.

“You don’t fuck me anymore, Richard.”

Richard’s eyes were dark and wicked as he lay her back against the pillows, grinning.

“Oh, don’t I.”

It had felt alien in a way, since it had been so long. By some unspoken agreement, Thomas wouldn’t touch her below the waist with anything other than his mouth; and Richard was mostly distracted by Thomas. And even later, as they lay in each other’s arms, Richard traced the red lines from the straps of the toy that still hadn’t faded, and Jed knew that he was thinking of him. She wondered if he had noticed how, when he walked into a room, Thomas’ eyes would light up, and his posture would straighten.

“You know,” she mused, curling into him, “I think he’s got a serious crush on you.”

“Don’t flatter me, Jeds.”

“It’s not flattery,” she said. “God, his face just lights up when he sees you. And he always wants to be held, but only by you.”

“Darling, if it’s anybody, it’s you. That man could have anyone he wanted.” Jed rolled her eyes. 

“Take him out to dinner, show him that you appreciate him,” she said. Privately, she thought -- _God, am I_ trying _to push myself out?_

“Well, I won’t be able to do that for a while,” said Richard, kissing her forehead. “Heading out on a business trip tomorrow. Should be back within the next few days.” Jed bit her lip, splaying her fingers over his chest. 

“Will you miss me?” she asked.

“Of course I will.” He kissed her on the mouth and sat up. “And you can tell Thomas that I’ll miss him too,” he added over his shoulder. 

 

Before heading for his jet, Richard wrapped his hands around Jed’s waist and kissed her long and hard. Thomas got a nod and a fleeting smile. Standing there in her sundress, she felt herself grow a little taller -- although Richard would joke that she hardly needed to. It felt good to be recognized. 

 

She was readying for bed when the commotion came from down the hall -- crashing, raised voices. When she ran out into the foyer, it was just in time to see Thomas lock Corky in a full-nelson and kick him forward to send him sprawling more or less at Jed’s feet. His nose was bleeding. When she looked up at Thomas, she saw with a sickening jolt that he was missing most of the buttons on his shirt and that the fly of his trousers was undone.

“Don’t come near me again,” he spat, and looked around at the people who had been roused by the noise. “Sorry.”

Corky stood up, wiping his bloody nose, and stalked off, but not before giving Thomas a look of loathing. Sensing that the show, if show it was, was over, the others turned and went back to bed, muttering. And then she and Thomas were alone, each looking the other over.

“Sorry you were woken,” he said at last. “You can go back to bed now.”

“I wasn’t asleep. Did he -- are you hurt?”

“Just my pride.” With a rather charming self-consciousness, he zipped up his fly. There was no call for it; she’d seen him do it countless times.

“You know, if you told Richard,” she said, “he’d probably an end to it.” Thomas screwed up his face for a moment.

“Probably. Not really worth it though.”

“You’d have any easier time of it.”

“I think I have an easy enough time of it already,” he said, giving her a meaningful look. “Good night.” He turned to go head down the hall, but Jed stepped forward.

“Wait.” He looked back at her. “I want to talk to you.”

“Alright.”

“Not here,” she said. Obediently, he followed her to the room that she and Richard shared. 

“Alright. What did you want to say?”

Jed dragged a hand through her hair and blew out a sigh, letting it carry the question out of her.

“Are you trying to replace me?”

He’d sat down on the bed without thinking. Now he looked up at her in bewilderment and surprise.

“ _Replace_ you? Jed, I’m not --”

“There’s still a place for you even if he doesn’t screw you,” she snapped. “If he gets tired of me, what am I? That’s the only reason I’m here. I’ll have nowhere to go --” her voice cracked and suddenly she realized there were tears pricking at her eyes. She turned away sharply so he wouldn’t see them when they fell. She couldn’t stifle the sob, though. “I -- I don’t want to be left behind.” 

“Jed,” Thomas said from behind her. “Jed, I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t even mean to get involved.” He sighed, and when Jed half-turned around, she saw that he’d buried his head in his hands . 

“Thomas… who are you?” she asked. He looked up, gazing at her for a long moment. She felt a tear slip down her cheek and hastily wiped it away. He couldn’t see her cry. Not even Richard had that right.

“I don’t know,” he said eventually. “You?”

“I’m no one.” Her voice was small, soft.

“Jed, I’m not trying to replace you. Please believe that.” A pause. “Do you love him?”

“Do you?”

Silence. The tears were coming again. She hid her face, failing again to muffle her sobs. Behind her came the creaking of bedsprings and then Thomas was wrapping his arms around her, letting her lean against him. 

“Jed…”

“Why did you have to come into our lives?” she murmured. “Why did you have to let him…”

He pressed his cheek against the back of her neck. 

“I don’t know.” His voice rumbled against her back, in her ear. Slowly she turned in his arms, let him lean his head on her shoulder, stroking his hair with one hand.

“I can’t hate you, Thomas,” she whispered.

“Jonathan.”

“I’m sorry?” 

He pulled back his head to look at her. 

“My name’s Jonathan. I just wanted you to know.”

He stayed in her room that night, talking until they fell asleep, curled around each other.

 

When she opened her eyes the next morning, still drowsy, she found him watching her with gentleness in his eyes. Daylight streamed in through the window, painting the room in shades of ivory, yellow, gold.

“Hello,” she murmured. He smiled a little. 

“Hello.”

He brought his hand up to brush the silk strap of her camisole, perhaps admiring the shine of the sunlight on the fabric. On impulse, she reached over to run a hand through his hair and kissed him. It was really only the third they’d shared. 

And after that it was all instinct, really -- slipping off her bottoms and her panties, undoing what remained of his shirt buttons, letting him slide his trousers off. The hand that reached between her legs, caressing her with a delicacy that bordered almost on tentativeness as she leaned over him, the slipping moment of union that made his eyes widen, till she was buried in his pupils. Their rolling rhythm, the thumb he kept at her bud, still letting her lead him. And the butterflies that took flight in her stomach… he was smiling, eyes half-closed. When she came, it was with a whisper, the sensation shaking her from deep within her core. 

“Jonathan…”

And his hands moved to her thighs; he sat upright to kiss her and pull her closer against himself, finishing with a huff of breath against her collarbone that sounded like her own name. The flood of warmth within her made her hum and she dipped down to bring their open mouths together. Rolling over, she let him kiss her in the pool of light that the morning had cast on the bed. The butterflies renewed the moment he lay his head on her chest, eyelashes scratching her skin as she ran her hands up and down his back until he fell asleep, and she was too drowsy to continue.  

 

 

They continued the arrangement for as long as Richard was away, to the point that it became the habit for them to reach for the other in sleep. And while they didn’t always make love, they were always together. They took walks, swam, showered, even once rode together with Jed on Sarah and Thomas -- Jonathan -- on one of their older mares. There had been a shift somewhere, somewhere in that third kiss, and when he came back, Richard noticed it.

“Things have changed, I see,” he said, taking in how closely they stood together. And that was only confirmed later on, with Jonathan caught in a desperate hurricane of hands, tongues, hips, teeth till his moans grew indistinguishable with sobs and the other two stopped out of concern. 

“Nononono,” he panted, head buried against Jed’s heaving breasts, Richard behind him, breathing just as hard. “No -- don’t stop -- please, it’s okay… I’ll be okay…” They asked if he was sure and he nodded, wiping tears off his cheeks. “Please. Don’t stop.”

Once they’d all been sated and Jonathan had been able to calm down, they agreed on a safeword: red. He was sandwiched between them, head resting on Richard’s shoulder. Richard gazed down at him with something soft in his expression; for the first time, Jed realized she did not feel jealousy. Their affection for him was mutual and deep, as was their desire to possess him. And Jonathan lay there between them, pulling them both closer until Jed was sure that they would become one and then implode into nothingness.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr at andtheansweris42!


End file.
